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Getting feedback on early versions of your prototype is crucial to a startup’s success. You’ll learn more the first day a user tries out your product than the previous 2 months you’ve spent thinking about it.

But, aside from getting user feedback, we really benefited from getting the chance to show Yipit to experienced entrepreneurs and investors.

We would often come back from those meetings and make major changes to our initial prototype plans.

But, it’s hard, especially as a first-time entrepreneur, to get their attention. Their time is their most valuable asset and they can’t meet with everyone.

Plus, even if they do meet with you, it doesn’t mean they will spend real time thinking about your product — the kind of time it usually takes to yield breakthrough product and marketing ideas.

So, how do you get their attention? Well, it seems like one answer is to get into TechStars.

TechStars Mentors

This is my first year helping out with TechStars as a mentor and they have been emphasizing that what makes TechStars different from other programs is their impressive list of mentors.

At first, I was definitely skeptical that the list of mentors was just that, a list.

I’ve come to see that the program, spearheaded by David Tisch, does a fantastic job of getting mentors involved.

They organize one-on-one meetings with the various companies in the program and get mentors to pick a specific startup to actively mentor.

I fully realized the power of the program when I get an email from one of the startups asking for feedback on their prototype.

I opened the email and the ”to” field blew me away.

When I had sent a similar email about the first version of our prototype, it was to five college friends, my brother and my mom. His “to” field included:

Fred Wilson, partner at Union Square Ventures

Andy Smith, co-founder of Daily Burn

Michael Galpert, co-founder of Aviary

Rachel Sklar, Editor-at-Large, Mediate

Josh Stylam, co-founder of Reprise Media

Nate Westheimer, NYTM organizer and formerly head of product at AnyClip

Eric Friedman of Foursquare and former associate at Union Square Ventures

Amish Jani, founder and managing directory of FirstMark Capital

Matt Galligan, co-founder of SimpleGeo

Jeremie Miller, inventor of Jabber

Seriously?! That’s a ridiculous list of people to send over your initial prototype.

Aside from getting great feedback from them (both on the product and vision), if some of them start using the product in ernest, they could bring many more additional users.